Theological/philosophical/cultural/spiritual thoughts about God and the Real Jesus.

Sunday, February 10, 2019

The Natural and the Supernatural - One Small Point

Bald eagle, flying over my house

Physicalist, therefore atheist professor David Barash has written, "[N]o literally supernatural trait has ever been found in Homo sapiens; we are perfectly good animals, natural as can be and indistinguishable from the rest of the living world at the level of structure." (Quoted in "Tom Bethell on a "Self-Defeating Complaint About Human Exceptionalism.")

Theist Tom Bethell responds, "But at the level of structure, what would a good materialist like Barash expect to find? Seraphic wings?"

Bethell adds, “Looking for supernatural traits at the natural level is as illogical as hunting for the mind in brain cells.”

This is the anthropic principle turned against science. The particular physicalist net of Barash will only catch physical things, of course. Barash's physicalist fishing net could not capture non-physical things, should they exist. So, to cast the physicalist net into the sea of reality and harvest only physical realities but no nonphysical realities cannot provide evidence against the supernatural.